tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 02 02:07:48 1994

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KBTP: cumulative vocabulary?



>From: joel peter anderson <[email protected]>
>Date: Wed, 2 Mar 94 13:42:11 CST


>Question for online KBTP participants:

>    Is there/has anyone thought to compile a "lexicon of terms" for 
>    translators?  I have not begun to fight... er, translate, my book,
>    but as I began to organize, I realize it would be useful to us all
>    if we could have a means to standardize our vocabulary.   I realize
>    that this is all available if I just read everything EVERYONE is 
>    doing.... but a central 'word' repository *would* enforce consistency
>    and speed the task...  

I know that Kevin Wilson has discussed this with me already, and there is
some effort in the works to come up with such a list.  Luckily, it's not as
vital as you might think.  So long as each translator is consistent within
each book, it will be a fairly easy task to do some quick search-and-replace
jobs to bring the terms to a consistent format.  Now, if the same word
winds up getting translated differently depending on the context... well,
then the translator is obviously being careful and we probably don't *want*
such translations encumbered by a standard term.

>[email protected] | Apertus Technologies | GEnie:j.anderson71
>*DevwI'wI' 'oH joH'a''e', jineHbe' * The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want*

Actually, I kind of like the one I posted a few weeks ago better.
"QorghwI'wI'" gets the meaning across better than "DevwI'wI'", or perhaps
"muQorgh joH'a'".  "'oH" is the wrong pronoun for this: if you're using
"-wI'" for the possessive, and thus indicating that God is sentient, then
you'd better use "ghaH", not "'oH".  "want" in the English is an old usage,
it doesn't reflect what the original meant.  The usage is really intended
to convey "lack".  That is, The Lord is my Sheperd, so I lack nothing" (I
think some versions use this translation.  It's a better one).  Besides, he
way you have it is *very* close to "I don't want the Lord to be my
shepherd" (only change would be making it "vIneHbe'").  "jIHvaD Dach pagh"
seems very nice to my ear.  Just thought you'd want to know...

~mark




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